


Fade to Grey

by whitesilence



Series: The Long Goodbye [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Punisher - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 20:43:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1563392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitesilence/pseuds/whitesilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria was no stranger to swallowing down heaping spoonfuls of regret without so much as gagging. But even she had difficulty when she came face to face with the aftermath of an op gone bad in a worn out diner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fade to Grey

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting this because I'm sick of staring at it and no one's going to read it anyway.

Maria was no stranger to swallowing down heaping spoonfuls of regret without so much as gagging. But even she had difficulty when she came face to face with the aftermath of an op gone bad in a worn out diner.

A year ago she’d been tasked with the surveillance of a mafioso trying to sell biological and chemical weapons. Contoso had arranged to meet with a buyer who had connections in Russia. S.H.I.E.L.D knew the canisters of sarin he was planning to sell were too degraded to be effectively used as a weapon; it was the buyer they were really interested in. Maria had been the lead on the op and taken the customary seat in the surveillance van. She’d been so focused on the men meeting in what would normally be an empty park on an early Tuesday afternoon that she hadn’t noticed the family of four setting out a picnic. Overwatch had been ordered to inform her if anyone got within thirty yards of the meet but it still hadn’t been enough distance to save them when the shooting started.

Later, they could never be sure what exactly had set the buyer off and the agent closest to the meet had gotten caught in the crossfire. Maria could only watch in silent horror as a woman was killed and two children died in their father’s arms. The knowledge that the father had murdered Contoso a few months later in a lonely alleyway behind the docks was cold comfort to her. The buyer, meanwhile, slipped away without a trace.

She’d been assigned to a low level posting in central Europe soon after the incident and she hadn’t expected to be called back to the States for some time. She had also never expected to see Frank Castle again and certainly not in the company of the Director. But she understood the moment Fury had introduced her as a fellow Marine, just why she had been called back to play handler. Fury was a twisted bastard that way. 

For his part, Castle had merely grunted into his coffee mug, content to ignore her in favor of his breakfast while Fury did the talking. It seemed that the Director wanted an outside agent, someone he could call on to handle the things even S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t touch. Maria would be guiding Castle through his first assignment.

“I don’t like POGs.” was the first thing he’d said after Fury had left, leaving the two of them in the otherwise empty diner. 

She’d merely raised an eyebrow. It was a both a curse and a blessing, being underestimated. 

 

Their target was the mysterious buyer that had been in the park that fateful day. He had resurfaced in Russia, this time selling blackmarket AK-47s and RPGs. Maria couldn’t find any intel on how the target had gotten a hold of the weapons but her contacts had told her the deal was going down in this backwater town.

She knew it would be rough working with a rogue operator with nothing more than a thirst for revenge. He’d challenged her over every detail of the op. From the transportation arrangements to her choice of weapons, Castle had tried every underhanded tactic he knew in an effort to undermine her and slip her leash. But she was no stranger to the inner workings of an infantryman’s mind. She took what little pleasure she could out of stonewalling him.

Then came the stinger, their man was in fact a woman. Red hair, lithe and as easy to grasp as the wind. Castle had only gotten a glimpse of her before she’d turned tail.The mission wasn’t a complete waste, he'd managed to snap a tiny, blurry photo on his phone before she slipped away in the confusion of an exploding building. Then their getaway vehicle became a casualty of the ensuing firefight between two rival mafia factions that had engulfed the tiny town. 

He only began to look at Maria with something like respect after she dragged him most of the way back to the quinjet through the Siberian wilderness. He’d been hit in both legs and in the pocket of his shoulder, rendering him pretty much useless. So she’d smacked a pistol into his right palm and told him put it to good use for once, instead of just using it to jerk off. Then she’d gripped the back of his flak jacket with an iron fist and took off into the falling snow, trusting him to cover their exit. 

The fresh snow had helped cover their tracks but by the time they made it back to the jet, it was falling too heavily for her to risk taking off. So they’d hunkered down for the night while she administered first aid. Maria had the standard field medicine courses under her belt and some actual field experience to boot; unfortunately these bullet wounds were beyond the scope of the basic medical kit in the quinjet. The best she could do was disinfect them, wrap them up tight and hope for the best.

Castle wasn’t the chatty type and neither was she. But leave two Marines alone long enough and they’ll find something to talk about. With nothing except aspirin to take his mind off the pain, they’d ended up trading war stories while camped out on the deck of the little aircraft. She’d told him about her time with the Lioness program in Iraq and he’d told her about the battle of FOB Valley Forge in the mountains of Afghanistan that had earned him a Medal of Honor. 

In the end, morning had come, the sun shining weakly in the grey smear of sky visible through the front windshield. Maria had gone out and cleared the snow off the wings of the quinjet and flown them back to base. Neither of them ever mentioned the night afterward but Castle never seemed to doubt her again.

**Author's Note:**

> Grunt - a Marine infantryman  
> POG - Persons Other than Grunts  
> The Lioness Program - http://www.lionessthefilm.com/  
> FOB Valley Forge - To my knowledge, there is not and never was any such place in Afghanistan. This is a reference to the origins story arc written by Garth Ennis for the Punisher MAX series.


End file.
